PA quotes of the day

"Maybe it is healthier but that should be people's choice and not because a pop star thinks farting cows and pigs herald the end of mankind" - Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall criticises Sir Paul McCartney's campaign to encourage meat eaters to go without flesh one day a week to cut greenhouse gases emitted by cattle.

Ed Balls up education

I was delighted to read yesterday that Prince Charles has stopped talking to plants in order to tell that fool Ed Balls that it's a really, really bloody stupid idea to stop teaching children useful things when they're at school.

Traditional subjects such as history and geography are to be sidelined in the biggest shake-up of primary education for 20 years.
Ed Balls vowed to press ahead with changing the curriculum to more general themes and topics...Under the Children's Secretary's plans, 13 stand-alone subjects will be merged into six 'areas of learning'. For example, history, geography and citizenship will be put together into 'historical, geographical and social understanding'.
Teachers will no longer have to cover certain periods of history such as the Tudors, or choose between the Victorians or the Second World War.

The thing with history, maths and geography is that not a lot of children study them in their spare time as they're out stabbing each other or, shock, playing computer games.

Children go to school mainly so parents can go to work and thus not have to spend all day with their ghastly offspring but also to learn about things that might not be that interesting but are quite important. History, culture, being able to work out what 10% of the bill is, how to write a letter or get from one part of the country to the other.

It also helps them find out what things they're good at and what they enjoy so they can develop in certain areas for future studying or even interesting days out for their parents to put on.

I hadn't the first clue about blogging or html before I sat down in my spare time and decided to learn and if I could have done it in my 20s then a child can do it much quicker than me!

Does this also mean that they won't learn foreign languages and once again Britain will lag behind other countries with only the few being able to travel abroad without having to shout 'sausage, egg and chips' to the waiter?

This government is ruining this country and ruining the lives of the children in this country and it's not just them of course but the cosy global consensus where they'll have to learn how great the EU is and how climate change is all the fault of your mum and your pet hamster, whizzy, because he farts too much.

'This is a huge step forward.' said Vernon Coaker

If 'forward' actually means 'backwards' then yes, I suppose it is. A huge step forward for our children and for education would be to revoke Baker's 1986 law on corporal punishment so they actually learn about discipline and sit down in a class room and listen to what they're being taught.

It's another classic Balls up from this foolish, elitest bean counter who needs to lose his seat and quickly.

But no matter how outraged we get at the torrent of incompetence which floods our daily lives, what will we actually do about it?

Tut, laugh when it's mocked by professional comedians on satirical news quizzes but fundamentally what we, the voters, will do is fuck all. We put them there. We put them all there and at the next General Election we'll put another bunch of the same but with blue ties in charge.

So we'll get more of the same.

The same QUANGOS, interference, high taxes and incompetent health care with the word 'choice' possibly thrown around a bit more. Yes, I agree that generally speaking choice is a good thing but wouldn't it be nice to hear some decent options to choose from? I suspect that what ill people want is to see a doctor who will do something within a reasonable time rather than choose between two hospitals they have a preference for dying in.

No one's perfect but are we so obsequeious that we think that people who think Max Clifford has the answer are the right people to govern Britain?

Take your pick of fuck ups: PSCOs instead of police men on the streets, Lisbon Constitution with no referendum, expenses, HIPS, the civil contingencies act, the closure of miles and miles of railway lines in rural areas causing our modern day traffic jams, the removal of liberties of muslim women who live in Britain so not to offend those who choose to deny them a modern standard of living, VAT, John Birt, Defence Estates, the abolition of corporal punishment in schools despite the view, now proven, that this would lead to a breakdown in juvenile respect for adults and a determination to actually fucking learn something rather than give teachers a hard time trying to improve their lives. For their parents who take no responsibility and don't work anyway because they're allowed not to at our expense.

They all are policies of Labour AND Tories so how will one side definitely be better thatn the other and correct the ills when history shows the only thing people in positions of power to is fuck things up royally. Unless we are at war?

And people who stick to their usuals, as if voting were a quick sherbet in the local after a tough day in the office, are to blame. People who make Endemol men rich. People like Peter Bazalgette Who brought us Big Brother and Changing Rooms and Charlie Dimmock's bra less mammories desperately making a bid for freedom over the water feature. Of course his great-great grandfather brought London decent sewerage system. As Stephen Fry so eloquently put it, Sir Joseph Bazelgette did enormous works to clean up London's streets whilst his great great grandson has managed to pump it back into people's homes.

We watch it, we buy the papers with some orange slag with nothing to say on the front. We vote for the person with the suitable wife and the snazzy soundbites. We get excited about MPs expenses more than we do the erosion of our own liberties.

We are, we are to blame. They just take advantage of what we're giving them without thing or chosing to find out who they are and what they really stand for.

And they'll tinker at the edges but they or their successors wion't change because they won't have to change unless we demand wholesale reform and stick to those reforms rather than not bothering because Coro-fucking-nation street is on. A programme I have never watched because it's the bad side of diazepam in screen format and it stops our country actually being a decent place to live. Others might be worse but can we reach for the stars instead of making do with the lowest common denominator?

The Armed Forces - a taskforce for a task force?

So the latest poll results give a clear indication of what you think our Prime Minister thinks of the Armed Forces

1. Lots came in at 17%
2. Not as much as they hate him romped home at 68%
3. Oh, he wishes they didn't have weapons came a weak third at 9%
4. I don't know but has he claimed them on expenses came in last at 4%. Presumably because he actually has already.

Earlier today, that vile beast Harriet Harman who knows as much about the Armed Forces as I do about the inner workings of the internal combustion engine decided to make a statement today on including the Armed Forces. According to the press release sent out yesterday:

The package of measures is:

• The establishment of an Employment and Skills Taskforce, chaired by Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to support service families’ access to the same employment, further education and training opportunities as the civilian community.
  
• An Armed Forces Champion for each Jobcentre Plus district who will act as first point of contact for service families and keep up to date with local activities to support service families
  
• A further Government review of how well local authority plans on childcare reflect the needs of service families, and what good practice examples and problems there are around transport, and consider if additional guidance is necessary
  
• Government will review the guidance given to local authorities on school allocations policy to ensure it reflects the needs of service families
  

The Government will publish a report on this work early next year, focussing on practical steps which improve the lives of Service family members.

I'm sure they will, although it's not actually news because they have to according to the command paper which set out lots of lovely things like priority treatment for veterans which has been as successful as the British public's choice of government.

The only way they can think of solving this supposed crisis with the Armed Forces causing the government PR disasters is to give lots of non jobs to inexperienced, fat women who talk in irritating voices, patronise everything they come into contact be they animate or not, wear skirts made from hemp and studied something pointless at a former polytechnic.

The reason the Armed Forces has been such a PR disaster for the government is because the government has been such a disaster for the Armed Forces. One of their first actions was to close down tens of thousands of TA positions, the U turn in cutting £20 million of the TA budget was the SECOND line of cuts the TA has had to make despite it playing a significant part in the current conflict and they want to cut infantry numbers when what we need is more infantry in Ghanners for more patrols to limit the time the Taliban have to plant IEDs and enter communities and bribe and threaten villagers.

With the £20 million cut in TA funding they also pledged this little beauty for the young men fighting on the front line:

Single Living Accommodation: £14million savings will delay some planned upgrades for 2009, 436 will be delayed and 149 will not be completed this year.

So there's a big 'fuck you' to the young privates and lance jacks. Fuck off - we'll claim over twice that in our expenses whilst you live four to a room in a shit hole.

This is on top of the latest report from the National Audit Office which outlined more delays in the upgrading of married quarters when the previous report showed unacceptable delays nicely rounds off how completely out of touch this bunch of lunatics are:

The condition of Service Families Accommodation is variable: 57 per cent (28,300) are in the best state (condition 1), 33 per cent (16,600) in condition 2, and the remainder are in the worst two conditions (four per cent) or their condition is not recorded (six per cent). Condition 2 is a broad band; many houses within it are a good standard overall, but others have serviceable but outdated kitchens and bathrooms.
These figures are likely to change as a result of a recent comprehensive condition survey. When asked about the condition of their property, 52 per cent of families who responded to our survey rated it as good but 31 per cent said it was poor. The Department’s aspiration is to raise all its houses to condition 1 and it has a programme
to upgrade some 600 properties in 2008-09 to the top standard, with a further 800 a year thereafter. It prioritises work in order to balance a focus on the worst properties with delivering an efficient programme, and targets properties in areas with a long term future. The investment in upgrades has varied over the years. At current rates of progress, and against the previous stock condition data, it would be some 20 years before all properties are condition 1, assuming that funding beyond 2011-12 situated on Armed Forces bases or within the community.

How, Harriet and Bob, with your multiple tax payer funded and furnished homes, here's a fucking thought. How about you stop wasting our time and our money with your 'community outreach programmes' because life within the forces is very inclusive. How about you stop highlighting how you know fuck all and do something about very basic things which are your responsibility. Decent housing, stopping children going to the bottom of the waiting list if their parents move bases, more helicopters and greater troop numbers. You are already so shit that you assist a charity in doing the work that you should be doing, to the detriment of other military charities who have for years plugged the gap in your failing authoritarian state. Not that I don't agree with charities but I do object to them having to fill in such gaping holes when the government already steals so much of our monthly pay cheque.

I simply cannot wait until you leave office and I sincerely hope you lose your seats. You are an embarrassment to this country and you are a danger to our liberty and well being. Go. Leave. You are not just a liability you are downright dangerous.

What time has told us

That Lady Thatcher was right.

"Perhaps being totally incompetent in monetary matters they'd be only too delighted to hand over the fully resposibilitieis to the IMF, to a Central Bank...

So yes the right honourable gentlemen would be glad to hand it all over.

What is the point of trying to get elected to Parliament on to hand over your Sterling and to hand over the powers of this house to Europe?"

This shows that the appalling Labour Party have not changed from the days when they were in opposition and this country had a strong and decisive leader in Mrs Thatcher. Alas, what has changed is that David Cameron is not fit to lick the shoes of the great lady who knew that when she was elected to be Prime MInister of this country she had a love and responsibility which meant she wasn't going to hand it anywhere.

It's much the same with the Queen, I suppose. History has been littered with having to try correct the mistakes of men but what we clearly need is a Matriarchal society as women actually give a fuck about what they're dealing with, rather than just themselves.

What Mrs Thatcher had to say following Norman Tebitt's comments about the binding of Parliament is exactly what's just happened with this sickening Labour government. No Parliament should be able to bind another and the British people should be able to vote in General Elections to change things. But what these grey suited dullards more interested in cocktail parties and their property portfolio than in actually governing have allowed is the Lisbon Treaty which has changed our political landscape drastically for the worst. The only way we'll be able to get back to a situation where British people can control their own future is by leaving the European Union and replacing it with a simple free trade agreement.

I wish we had her back, or at least MPs in Westminster who not only talk about what happens at these European Summits but that a Prime Minister came back and talked about how they fought for the independence of our Parliament and for our country to be a democracy and a sovereign state.

Newspaper sinks to new depths shocker

Most of us have reached the stage where we're used to tabloid newspapers undertaking the sort of 'investigations' which would make the majority of people shiver and stab themselves before undertaking. Mark Reckons has alerted me to a new such depth undertaken by The Sun following their use of a grieving mother to attack their former buddy, Gordon Brown.

It's a pity that Rupert Murdoch does hold such power in deciding who runs this country because alas the grasp of politics, science and general knowledge by the vast majority of journalists is very slight. Cheers all round to the ones who have to wikipedia the so called 'celebrities' they are often told to write about, even if it does add to the time taken to finish the 'story'. Opinion revolves around who the editors are friends with and which bit they know about, because of course the press don't monitor the parliamentary chamber where most of our laws are debated or spend much time outside their protective bubble.

To sink to attacking the children of a man who was sacked by our Orwellian government for having an opinion is stinking, putrid detritus and also hypocritical since I know of many a hack working for News Int who themselves drunk before the age of 18, have admitted to taking drugs and have no problem with removing their clothes.

I don't object to them doing any of that naturally, it's the fact that they choose to preach and judge people for doing the same thing for no other reason than they work for a newspaper organisation which is too scared to have a debate on the legalisation of drugs. Why? Surely everyone has been told at some point that alcohol and tobacco would be class A should they be made illegal and yet there appears to be no outcry as they trip down to the subsidised bar or have a smoke on the terrace.

I will assume that this didn't come from the political team themselves given one or two of their opinions on these dastardly illegal substances as they, would you believe, are definitely more sensible than the view that not so esteemed organ chooses to take.

This last bit made me snort with derision:

He also came up with one of his trademark far-out theories - accusing us of bribing a pal to send in a picture of him smoking a roll-up ciggie

One, that looks very much like a normal roll up to me and two, I hardly think that paying people for leaking them stories is in any way 'far out' unless 'far out' now means 'accurate'.

I for one have been approached to do the same thing. I don't happen to store photographs of people smoking roll ups, though. But it's a reason why my facebook profile has quite high security settings.

If Mr Coles is suggesting that Master Nutt is slightly deranged with his concept of 'far out' theories I wonder if there's a legal suit winging it's way Wapping-Wards?

Childish I know

So 1000 anti war protestors have braved the weather for a march past in Edinburgh where the annual NATO Parliamentary Assembly is taking place.

The usual people were there: students, people in back packs, anti nuclear protestors who don't really understand about defence but are jolly good at making parsnip wine and some families of dead soldiers. Fair enough for the latter, but most soldiers do want to continue with the fighting.

Also joining the march, and bringing joy to my heart, was Dutch senator Tiny Koxx.

That's right, Tiny Koxx.

I couldn't give a fuck about the old moaners who will never understand the Armed Forces and quite frankly am not going to give them and their silly march any more publicity.

So I'll just say the fact that there's a Dutch Senator called 'Tiny Koxx' again and smile.

A thought on the non story

I do hope that these stories in The Sun about the letters don't fall foul of the law of unintended consequences.

It is a fact that more soldiers will die in this conflict and, having spoken to families who have received letters of condolence from the Prime Minister and greatly appreciated them, I'd hate to think that this latest non story stopped this from happening.

I'm rubbish at spelling and rely on spell check to assist me in the same way that many people rely on calculators to do mathematics that I can do in my head. The Prime Minister is also a busy man - I wish he wasn't because the hapless man has all but destroyed this country and continues to do so.

But in a time of grief a hand written letter from the Prime Minister is an important gesture. Okay, it's a gesture but it's not a political stunt because there were no bloody press releases about it when he took the decision to do this.

What would be terrible is if because of this PR disaster for him, spurred on by the paper who until a few weeks ago were all in favour of Labour and a grieving mother other families did not get that personal touch.

I do hope that Gordon Brown, for the short time he has left as Prime Minister does not let this fiasco deter him from doing one of the few things he has done right.

New Poll - Armed Forces

Did anyone see how pissed off Gordon Brown looked at the Festival of Remembrance last night? One can only presume, especially given his performance today at the Cenotaph, that he objected to them being so loved by the people when he clearly isn't.

He cuts numbers, ignores the advice of Generals about needing equipment and increase in troop numbers to give less time for Terry to plant IEDs and he was desperate to slash funding for other non regular Army elements (and still succeeded with all but the TA) before he was shamed into pretending he didn't want to all along. And that's just the Army.

I've popped a poll up there in the corner so you can express your opinion. I look forward to seeing the results.

Britblog Roundup

As per, The Chameleon has done herself proud. One presumes if she blushes on receiving a compliment she will turn a becoming shade of pink.

rock and a bloody hard place

And not a good hard place. Not, like, a floor with a back injury or somewhere sturdy when you need to plane a door so it doesn't stick in the frame.

Bad hard place and bad rock.

After abandoning plans to hold a referendum on Europe, following last week’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Hague said the Tories accepted that constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years.

And while the party remained Euro-sceptic, a Conservative Government would not get into a “bust-up” over its new policy of seeking to negotiate opt-outs in a number of areas of European policy and pass a sovereignty bill to stop further powers being repatriated for some time to come...

Right, so no decent hand when it comes to negotiation and now they've told the buggers that they'll effectively just pussfoot around pracitising the French they learnt during the skiing season when they were at uni.

“We will be working with our European partners on climate change, on the single market, on free trade and so on. That will be our responsibility and we will do that very well.”

Oh fuck me. You can't have free trade when you're part of a European Union which has a common external tariff. It also uses 'human rights an that' to impose Western standards of work, employment and other such things on poor countries who desperately need to trade to remove themselves from a subsistence living. And that's without the bastard EU trotting along and buying up their fishing rights then spending our tax money on Leer jets and mercedes for their dictators (that's 'foreign aid', by the way).

So bascially what the Tories are going to do is a big, fat dollop of fuck all. They'll pretend that we haven't transferred most of our law making abilities to the EU and ponce around here having debates about duck houses.

It's as futile as the Scottish blithering on about independence when they still want to be in the EU and Northern Irish politicians debating about policing when the Lisbon Treaty's been signed.

Nut jobs. Read some EU legislation. Have a quick look at the treaty that these bastards have signed you up to and then realise that if you're a British politician, unless you're an MEP outside of a large group with loads of staff, then you can concern yourself with wondering if those scatter cushions would look nice in your office and where to go next recess.

And if you're a voter then blame yourself when you vote Lib/Lab/Con and nothing changes.

I'll be here, ready to say I told you so.

1000th post - and what they gave me to write about

Forgive, once again, my tardiness in commenting on the actions of the Tory Party when it comes to their least favourite policy: the EU.

Mr Eugenides had promised he would write a little something in honour of this momentous post but due to matters out of my control and probably to do with skirt, he's now too busy. However, I will forgive him because, as frequent readers will know, he has a bewitching hold over me.

But enough of that, for we have the Tory policy on the EU to mull over. And Cameron made a particularly fine effort when he used a lot of words to say not a lot.

The thrust of the argument is that William Hague will go to the other ministers and say that he wants the UK to have opt outs from the EU over issues on employment law, such as the social chapter (now articles 136 - 145 of the Treaty and thus not a 'chaper' anymore), taxation and general sovereignty issues.

I worry that the future Prime Minister, whose eyes appear only to be on getting the keys to Number 10 rather than the future of this country, does not understand that because of the Factortame decision European Law is superior to UK law and has been since The Lady was in charge of the country.

We will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.

This is not about Westminster striking down individual items of EU legislation.

It is about an assurance that the final word on our laws is here in Britain.

Except that every schoolboy is wrong, and so is David Cameron. That's not bloggertarian hysteria, by the way: it's First year Law at every university in the land.

"Some public comments on the decision of the Court of Justice, affirming the jurisdiction of the courts of member states to override national legislation if necessary to enable interim relief to be granted in protection of rights under Community law, have suggested that this was a novel and dangerous invasion by a Community institution of the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament.

But such comments are based on a misconception. If the supremacy within the European Community of Community law over the national law of member states was not always inherent in the EEC Treaty it was certainly well established in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice long before the United Kingdom joined the Community. Thus whatever limitation of its sovereignty Parliament accepted when it enacted the European Communities Act 1972 was entirely voluntary. Under the terms of the 1972 Act it has always been clear that it was the duty of a United Kingdom court, when delivering final judgment, to override any rule of national law found to be in conflict with any directly enforceable rule of Community law. [...]

As he who shall not be named for a few weeks at least points out.
Many Tories appear happy with this decision but whether it's because they think it will actually produce any results or whether it's settled their concerns that the electorate will view them as just another bunch of jumped up fuckwits more interested in power than actually doing anything with it, I am unable to say.

Helmer and Hannan are not happy with it, and as these chaps actually know a lot about the EU perhaps that should light a beacon in the view of the party activists and voters who want the British people to actually have a say.

Because the Tories will go into this negotiation having already informed their opponents that they will not play their trump card, withdrawal, I can hardly see them being a success. Such is the lustful panting of The Boy Dave over our slavish and costly membership of the EU their counterparts can just sit there and say 'NO' in a variety of languages knowing there will be no backlash.

And then what? This is already a five year policy - five years of paying billions of pounds to an institution which is going to vote itself another pay rise of 10% come December whilst the press look the other way. In that five years just think of what can happen seeing as it's only been four years since the French and Dutch said NON and NEE and now we have a Constitutional Treaty which has bound our parliament.

The blindness or plain refusal to admit to themselves and us that these big things we need to deal with, like the economy and public debt are bound up with our membership, is deeply frustrating. Cameron is displaying signs of Polly Syndrome: He says he will be lumbered with this astronomical debt but he won't take steps to stop us paying about £50 million a day to an institution which on top of this financial burden also wants to close down the City of London and does everything in its power to stop people being productive and efficient.

I expect it from Labour and the Lib Dems because I think they're mendacious, dribbling morons. They also don't pretend they are in any way eurosceptic which of course the Tories do.

UKIP now represent a very key part in the General Election and not just the jolly good battle which will take place in Buckingham. Aside from some cunt trying to bankrupt the party - conveniently after they beat Labour in the European Elections but that's the travesty that Blair did to the legal system and the civil service - they are now the only party offering the British people the chance to have their say.

Good news on the UKIP front today is that Tom Wise looks to be spending some time at Her Majesty's pleasure. And he used to be a copper which means he won't be having any fine wines unless they're shoved where the sun don't shine.

I am glad that Lindsay Jenkins now will not face charges because she was a pawn in the game of a very nasty man. It was all about the funding of a book, you see. The tale told to me was that one of Sunday Times hack Daniel Foggo's alleged contacts who has been causing trouble in UKIP circles for many years came up with this idea of her book being funded through secretarial allowances. Now, this is not allowed and one must ask oneself why this idea was proposed so vigorously to a number of UKIP MEPs who turned down the idea by someone who would know that this wasn't permitted. One of his lady friends decided to spill the beans on the plot, it has been said.

And why did she spill the beans? Well, our friend the rumour mill says it's because she was pissed off that she didn't get any of the money which was promised to her from Mr Wise. But seeing as I only received that information from party officials and not directly from the source I cannot confirm.

If this was true then surely there should be questions raised about the gentleman in question and, indeed, the lady?

I wonder how old Roger Knapman is taking the news of his friend pleading guilty? When Nigel Farage and John Whittaker took the decision to suspend Mr Wise over this, Mr Knapman was most affronted and one of the people who have been linked to the nutty Junius blog, his former researcher, even sent press releases to the lobby briefing against the party and not informing the UKIP press office. Roger Knapman was aware that Tom Wise was being investigated but had decided not to tell the UKIP leader or chairman. Ah, I was glad when he was no longer leader. It's a shame that one of the people who I understood to be working for a leadership contender also knew and decided not to say anything.

It was a most undignified mess but then most things under Knapman's leadership were including certain diverted e-mails from head office to a former MP who then, it has been alleged, decided to forward them onto the usual troublemakers.

I'd like to think that this has brought an end to the saga of the loonies. Many have left to form their own party and then quit that, some have died, some are still bimbling around inventing stories about Farage and Hannan and calling up Sunday journalists.

In any case, 1000 posts later I do feel that lines have been drawn under a few issues which were at the forefront of my life when I started this blog.

Most importantly, we know where the Tories lie on matters of national sovereignty and we know that when it comes to a vote on the future of our country, they won't be the ones to deliver.

So if we want to take our lives by the scruff of the neck and decide for ourselves then the Lib Lab Con won't be the people to vote for.